Two weeks have passed since Ichihime gave birth, and the date is now January 10th.
For us, raising children for the first time was quite challenging in many ways.
First, immediately after birth, babies sleep and wake up at intervals of about three hours.
Therefore, Ichihime, who has to breastfeed Manpukumaru and Chacha, also has to change her daily routine to match the babies' needs.
"Oh dear, is Manpukumaru full? Hehe, look at Chacha's wetting herself so much..."
After patting her eldest son on the back to make him burp, Ichihime smiled wryly as she untied Chacha's loincloth.
Manpukumaru seemed to be in high spirits after a full meal, but Chacha, on the other hand, was crying loudly, probably because she had soiled herself profusely in her loincloth.
"Now then, let's make Lady Chacha look nice and clean."
Then, after cleaning Chacha's groin area with a cloth soaked in the bathwater, Princess Osamu changed her diaper.
It seems that Princess Haruhime would have liked to wash her loincloth as well, but she had to reluctantly give up after receiving strong resistance from her two ladies-in-waiting.
"I'm sorry, Princess Osamu."
"No, no, they are the children of your wife and Lord Nagamasa. Please allow me to do this much."
As she said this, Osamu gently touched Chacha's cheek.
"Besides, being able to touch a young boy like this...is a perk of the job."
Haruhime gently stroked Chacha's body.
"Lady Ocha-chan, everything will be alright now. I, Osamu, will stay by your side..."
Then, he repeatedly gently tickles Chacha's cheeks and waves his fingertips in front of her eyes.
Then, the eldest daughter gradually calmed down and stopped crying. She looked at Princess Osamu with her innocent eyes and began to flap her small limbs.
The girl who was crying just moments ago is now completely content and happy.
"Even so... Chacha seems to have grown quite attached to Osamu..."
After laying Manpukumaru down next to Chacha, I casually stroked Ichihime, who was sitting beside me, and murmured thoughtfully.
"Yes, that's true. Even when Chacha is in a bad mood, if Princess Osamu comforts her, she immediately cheers up..."
However, there was no trace of jealousy on Ichihime's face as she said this.
She probably realized how incredibly difficult raising children is after actually having one.
Trying to do everything yourself is simply unsustainable.
One of the things that troubles mothers is trying to keep a fussy baby happy.
If the baby is in a bad mood, they won't go to sleep easily, and that ultimately affects the mother's sleep time.
Ichihime seems truly grateful that Haruhime is able to soothe Chacha and get her to sleep so quickly.
"Hey... Osamu, do you have any tips for soothing Chacha?"
I ask out of curiosity.
That's because, unlike Manpukumaru, Chacha was a child who wouldn't cooperate no matter how hard Ichihime and I tried to appease her.
Is she strong-willed, or is she just difficult to deal with...?
To us, Princess Osamu, who can so easily tame Chacha, seems like a goddess.
"No, there are no tips or tricks..."
However, according to Haruhime, she didn't seem to have done anything particularly special.
"Chacha may seem difficult, but she is actually a very honest child. So perhaps... she can't be honest in front of you and your wife."
"Even though it's a baby?"
"Perhaps it is precisely because they are young children that their true human nature is laid bare and revealed."
Saying this, Osamu gently patted Chacha's stomach.
A cyclical rhythm of "pon, pon."
Perhaps feeling reassured, Chacha drifted off into a deep sleep.
"Yeah... that might be true."
I nodded and patted Ichihime on the shoulder, just as Osamuhime had done to Chacha.
"Ichi, I know it's tough, but go back to sleep. We'll have dinner when you wake up next."
"Yes, that's right..."
Ichihime repeats the cycle of waking up every three hours to feed her babies and then going back to sleep, in accordance with their needs.
Normally, a daughter of a samurai family would find a wet nurse to take over, but Ichihime adamantly refused.
It seems she has a strong desire to breastfeed her own child.
"Well then, I'll go back to sleep."
"That would be a good idea. I'll have dinner ready by the time you wake up next."
"Yes... Lord Nagamasa, Princess Haruhime, I look forward to working with you."
Saying this, Ichihime lay down beside the futon where Manpukumaru and Chacha were lying down and closed her eyes.
And after a while, it began to breathe softly in its sleep.
"Even so... Your wife is very strong."
As Osamu-hime watched the sleeping Ichihime, she murmured:
"You must be in a lot of pain physically... but you never show it on the surface..."
"Yeah, that's right."
I wake up to the sound of my baby crying, breastfeed him, get him back to sleep, go back to sleep, and then wake up again—it's a never-ending cycle.
Raising children is extremely difficult for women, and it's not uncommon for mothers to suffer from postpartum depression.
"However, the wife loves the children she had with Lord Nagamasa... so much so that she can put aside her own suffering. That's probably why she doesn't harbor any resentment."
If that were true—nothing could make me happier.
The love a woman shows her children is, in a sense, a reflection of her evaluation of her husband.
If the child is the offspring of a husband you hate, raising them will undoubtedly be painful, and the opposite may be true if the child is the offspring of a husband you love.
If Ichihime finds fulfillment in raising our child, then I can believe that the path we've walked together so far hasn't been a mistake.
"I see."
I felt overwhelmed with an unparalleled sense of happiness.
◆
Supporting Ichihime in raising her children while also fulfilling his duties as the head of the Asai family was physically demanding in many ways.
If the baby starts crying while I'm sleeping, I have no choice but to get up, and helping to change diapers during the night has become a daily routine.
But even so, it was enjoyable to watch my child grow bigger day by day, and it gave me a definite sense of fulfillment.
In a way, without that, I probably wouldn't have been able to dedicate myself so much to raising my children.
His relationship with Ichihime was going smoothly without any postpartum crisis, and they would occasionally kiss when Osamuhime wasn't around.
Although she was suffering from afterpains and lochia, my wife's recovery was progressing smoothly—slowly but steadily, the physical damage she sustained during childbirth was healing.
But even a month after she gave birth, I still couldn't bring myself to lay a hand on her.
It's not like I've lost my sexual desire for her because she's become a mother or anything like that.
Rather, seeing Ichihime looking even more alluring, I desperately wanted to hold her in my arms—but still, I had to restrain myself.
It is reasonable to expect that it will take approximately 6 to 8 weeks for a woman to return to her pre-pregnancy state.
However, the nutritional value of food during the Sengoku period was inferior compared to modern times.
Therefore, I had firmly decided that I would hold Ichihime in my arms in the ninth week.
If I were to give in to my sexual desires, have sex with her, and then kill her—that would be a truly horrific sight.
This is because puerperal fever was a common cause of death for women during that era.
In other words, many women died from bacteria entering their vaginas or uteruses through sexual intercourse with men while recovering poorly after childbirth.
To prevent this, the custom of "returning to one's hometown" was practiced in modern Japan.
While it is generally understood that the primary purpose of this was to allow mothers to dedicate themselves to childcare, the true intention was to physically separate wives from their husbands and prevent them from having sexual intercourse.
This shows just how familiar and feared puerperal fever was to the Japanese people.
And so, having made up my mind, I invited Ichihime out for the night on February 28th.
Holding the now-grown Manpukumaru and Chacha in her slender arms, Ichihime nodded shyly.